Freehold Township Boys Lacrosse Beats Toms River South 11-6

Freehold Township High School boys lacrosse (5-5) won the opening faceoff. And that’s about all they needed to take control of their game against Toms River South Thursday.

They would go on to pile on three quick goals, have a one goal lead after one, three at half, and then pull away in the second half for an 11-6 win over Toms River (5-9). After the game, Freehold head coach Steve Gibb was happy with the victory.

“We were fortunate enough to make a little less mistakes than we normally make so we came out on top,” Gibb said. “It was a good effort by our guys. We had something to play for – now we’re 5-5.”

Freehold Township got on the board fast when just 28 seconds into the game, Dan Bloodgood scored off a pass from Scott Buchanan, and very quickly it was 1-0 Patriots. Two and a half minutes later, they scored again when Michael Camassa scored unassisted to make it 2-0. Less than a minute later, the initial tandem hooked up again when Bloodgood scored from Buchanan to make it 3-0. And to top it all off that duo flipped the order, and this time with 3:27 left in the quarter Buchanan scored from Bloodgood. After the first quarter was over it was 4-0 Patriots.

Gibb credited the fast start with the victory.

“We were [off to a fast start] but then that’s a dangerous situation. You score three quick goals like that and your team has a tendency to let down. Toms River kids are tough and they comeback. You can never let your guard down. We stayed on top of our guys when we had timeouts and at halftime and tried to instill that we still needed to play hard.”

Needless to say, the Toms River South coaching staff was none too pleased in their between-quarters huddle.

In the second quarter, Toms River scored two goals, the first by Kristian Brendler off an assist from Nick Jernack with 5:08 left in the quarter. Then less than a minute later, Tom Dougherty scored unassisted to make it 4-2 Patriots.

Freehold Township, however, called a timeout shortly after, and 12 seconds after the huddle ceased, they made their prettiest goal of the day when Joe Petrillo scored on an assist from Bloodgood to make it 5-2 and that was the halftime score.

The Patriots came out firing to start the third quarter, with goals in the first three minutes from Gene Blanco, Buchanan and Ryan Kiernan. Toms River posted one by Kyle Jernack. After it was all added up, the third period ended with the Patriots having an 8-3 lead, and the game was, essentially, over.

The fourth quarter was split three goals apiece, with tallies from both Jernacks and Bryan Sullivan for Toms River and Kiernan and two more from Bloodgood for Freehold.

Bloodgood finished with six shots, three goals, three assists and four ground balls. Toms River was led by Nick Jernack who finished with 10 shots, one goal, four assists and two ground balls.

Freehold Township goalie Todd Bitsko made 19 saves. Both Tyler Gouse and Morgan Bumbera played goal for Toms River.

Gibb has high hopes for Freehold Township’s next game against Long Branch Friday.

“The state cutoff is Saturday. We got one more game tomorrow. So if we win [Friday], we’re in the states. We feel we’re in pretty good position for tomorrow. While we respect them [Long Branch], we still have to go out and play good lacrosse to win the game and that’s what we are going to try to do.”